


Baby Blues

by catty_the_spy



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Child Neglect, Forced Marriage, Forced Pregnancy, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, In Panem AU, POV First Person, mentioned miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 13:52:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14594415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: She can't get attached. (She is attached.)





	Baby Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Did a bit of wrestling with this one. I'm not sure if Katniss came off the way I wanted her to. In canon, her main objections to children are dealt with years before she decides to have them. In this fic, on the other hand...

Calli squalls the entire time she's in my arms. My smile goes a bit strained at the edges. When the photographer calls for a break, Peeta takes her and her screams fade into whimpers.

"She just wants Nurse," he says, kissing her fat wrinkly forehead. "She's not used to all this fuss. Are you, honey?"

He can lie all he wants, but we both know that it's because she's not used to me. I held her off and on for the first week, to satisfy the cameras, but for the last six months she's been taken care of by Peeta and Nurse.

"Let's switch things up," the photographer says. Our prep teams rush in to touch up make up, wipe the tears from Calli's face, neaten Blue's curls, and fix Tallow's twisted cuffs. "Bluegrass can sit in Mommy's lap, Calliope can stay with Daddy, and Tallow can stand right here, in the middle. There. Katniss, put your hand on his shoulder. Perfect."

Peeta got a little lipstick on Calli's forehead. Valencia coos as she wipes it off.

Bluegrass smiles shyly up at me. She's old enough to want me. Because the cameras are watching, I smile back.

 

The Capitol started clamoring for a baby a year after our wedding. They swooned and sighed over their star-crossed lovers, fresh from their honeymoon, working diligently to make the Quarter Quell a success. Our nineteen year old tributes had a little mine experience, but knowing how to use a pickaxe didn't carry them far. We stole the limelight from the District Four victor by sharing ice cream in a Capitol park and going to the premier of a cheesy movie. A baby would be the perfect cap on our love story.

Peeta wanted children. I didn't. Effie helped find me birth control and Portia slipped Peeta the pack of condoms, not as expensive in the Capitol as they were back home. We excused the delay by protesting that we were too young, still getting used to marriage, wanted to keep things to ourselves for a little longer. It wasn't enough.

A card arrived from the desk of the president, congratulating us on our new bundle of joy.

I had Tallow nine months later.

  


When photoshoot is over Peeta tells Nanny to put the kids back in their play clothes. He and I have an interview to go to. I wait in the car with Haymitch while Peeta lingers, making the kids promise to be good, fussing over Calli and warning Nurse that she's been cranky.

Effie taps her wrist impatiently, but she doesn't badger him as much as I think she ought too.

"You'd think he'd be less of a mother hen," Haymitch says.

Effie hustles Peeta into the car.

"The peacekeepers will get them safely home," Effie says. "And I've arranged something of a treat for the baby's first photoshoot. Oh Peeta, she's such a doll!"

"Then again..." Haymitch says, and pulls out his flask.

 

Mom said it was normal for new mothers to have trouble connecting with their babies. "Give it time," she said.

I didn't need time.

"Tallow's going to die in the Games," I told Peeta.

Peeta loved Tallow. He loved the tiny lumpy fingers with the dagger nails on the end. He loved the drooling, and giving him baths in the sink, and getting up to check the bassinet when he wouldn't shut up in the middle of the night.

"We don't know that," Peeta said. He had a weird habit of kissing each foot when he put Tallow's socks on and singing stupid songs about buns.

"Peeta. You know what happens to the children of victors. You know just as well as I do."

Peeta sighed. He let Tallow grab his fingers and wave them around.

"Okay. Okay, the odds aren't in his favor. I know that. Are you saying you want to give him training, like the careers? We can do that."

"I'm saying don't get too attached."

"'Don't get too...' What?"

"Don't get too attached to him, Peeta. It's just going to hurt you later."

Peeta didn't answer. After a little while he put Tallow in his bassinet and closed himself up in his paint room. I didn't see him again until dinner.

 

"What's it like to be a mother of three?"

"Busy."

The audience has a good chuckle. The richest people in the Capitol have Avoxes take care of the messiest bits of child rearing. Some use surrogates or raise clones of themselves. Caesar Flickerman's oldest child is a clone.

"They all need a little something different from you, and there are only so many hours in a day. And of course, everyone wants to know they're still Mommy's favorite."

"Yes, I remember your oldest was a bit of a momma's boy."

"It makes you feel special. Of course, I know you all love me, and I appreciate that so much, but it's different when it's your own little boy. And then they get older and they want to be just like dad."

I give Peeta's shoulder a playful shove and he responds with a guilty laugh.

 

We have our biggest fight when Tallow's a year old. He's sensitive, like Peeta must've been as a child, always underfoot and trying to touch me. It's better when Peeta's home; Peeta doesn't mind the sticky fingers or the occasional mess, and sometimes he'll hold him for no reason at all.

Peeta's gone into to town to help his father decorate a cake. It's just me and the baby, and he's in one of those touchy moods. Climbing up the stairs and needing help to get down again. Holding out his hands to be picked up when I'm busy. Whining for this and that thing. Bringing me toys instead of playing with them. At one point he starts crying and won't stop. I give in and hold him for a bit, but it only helps for a few minutes at a time. Eventually I can't take it anymore and have to sit on the porch with my hands over my ears.

That's when Peeta comes home.

"It didn't occur to you that he was hungry?" Peeta asks, while Tallow spreads breadcrumbs all over his left shoulder. "Katniss, I was gone all day!"

"How was I supposed to know? I tried everything I could think of."

"And not one of those things was food? Are you serious? What is _wrong_ with you?"

"I gave him a bottle this morning! You act like I was starving him. Just because I don't spoil him like you do-"

"Feeding him lunch isn't spoiling him."

"I feed him! You always get so bent out of shape over every little thing. Get over it Peeta, he's not going to be here forever. Are you going to carry him through the whole Games?"

"This isn't about the Games!"

We stare at each other. Our shouting made the baby start crying again.

"You don't care," Peeta said. "Fine. Burn his fingers. Hit him with a rolling pin. But this...you won't do this. You will not do this again."

 

 

"Is three the magic number or will another little Mellark be visiting us soon?"

Peeta and I share a startled glance.

"It's a little early to be thinking about that," Peeta says. "Calliope is still so young."

I nod quickly. "It'll be a while before we even think of another baby."

They all laugh at our skittishness and ask Haymitch if he does any babysitting.

I squeeze Peeta's leg just out of sight.

In the car, on the way to the next stop, we both turn to Haymitch.

"Do you think we put them off?"

"Maybe. Wait 'til the pictures come out." He scrubs a hand over his face. "Seeing the baby they've already got might calm them down a little."

"It is early for a new baby," Effie says. "We'll make that our official response. Too soon to contemplate. At the very least little Calliope should be walking!"

We breeze through traffic. No one ever stops our cars.

"Tallow will be reaping age soon. Maybe that will distract them."

The way I'm sitting, I can't see Peeta's face, but I don't need to. I imagine it looks a lot like Effie's.

 

They make me have Bluegrass when Tallow is two. I'm pregnant during that year's Game.

We get sponsors based purely on Tallow's face in the press. One of our tributes makes it to the final five.  
While we're there, Effie offers to hire us a nanny.

"You're both so run down! It's sweet of you, Peeta, to pick up the slack, but the two of you can't watch sweet little Tallow and mentor, and court sponsors all at the same time. I'll sort everything out."

Nanny is just for the Capitol. At home, Peeta tried to make the pregnancy easier for me, but it was a difficult pregnancy.

Blue was born in the Capitol. She was smaller than Tallow, even more squashed and ugly. I have to hold her and smile and nurse her in front of cameras for three long months, before they finally let us go home.

In District Twelve, we hired Nurse. She was a Seam woman with a baby of her own, willing to go through all the fuss for the extra money, and we paid her well.

She fed Blue, and Peeta took care of the rest.

I went to the woods as often as I could. Gale came sometimes, on Sundays, but he was busy in the mines and with his children at home. He kept expecting me to understand his parenting jokes. At least at first.

Eventually the cameras came back, and the Capitol wanted a check-in.

It was a nightmare. It was always a nightmare.

 

 

Peeta and I do a commercial to advertise the upcoming Games. Then we do another to advertise our arena.

"Come be a part of our story," I say, my smile glued to my face. I hope I don't look too fake. "Visit the place where our dreams came true."

In another ad, Peeta pulls me closer while we look up at the seal of Panem, a perfet picture of patriotism.

In between shoots, Peeta pulls out a pocket computer and shows off baby pictures.

We travel to yet another talk show, where the host already has a few of this morning's photos.

"You have such a beautiful family!"

"Thank you," I say, still wearing my pasted on smile. "I think the new baby really makes our family feel complete."

"They really are a gift," Peeta says. "We visited our arena recently, and it really struck me that my family is the greatest reward. In my eyes, they represent everything that is beautiful about the Capitol, and Panem as a whole."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," the host sighs. "Don't you agree, everyone?"

The audience cheers.

 

 

I got back from the woods late to find my house mercifully empty. Nurse had gone home and taken her baby with her. The only sign of Tallow downstairs was the basket of toys by the television. His coat and Peeta's were gone.

I lit a fire in the hearth.

Maybe they'd gone into town. Peeta liked to visit his friends, sometimes. He liked to take the kids down to see his family, though with Mrs. Mellark there I couldn't see why.

Maybe I'd visit Prim. She was sixteen now, well on her way to becoming a healer. She and mom sometimes had people recovering upstairs, and why not? They certainly had the space. They'd have the space until I died. Prim said she was going to reopen the apothecary shop when she was free of the reaping.

Mind made up, I put my boots back on and walked across the street, to the house where the windows were all lit up.

They were in the kitchen. Prim was drawing with Tallow, thick wax crayons on butcher paper. Mom was holding Bluegrass and doing all those stupid things Peeta did - cuddling her close, kissing her little hands, bobbing like an apple in a barrel.

Why did they do this to themselves?

"Katniss!" Mom gave me a nervous smile. "Are you hungry? We made shepherd's pie."

She held out the baby for me to take.

"I'm not hungry," I said, edging around her.

"Oh. Well, if you change your mind."

"I won't," I said, and I meant both things. I meant the food, and I meant the baby. I didn't want either.

 

 

"That's a mighty fine line you're walking," Haymitch says in the car. At first, I'm not sure who he's talking to.

"I have to try," Peeta says.

"And if it backfires? If they decide they just have to see their precious symbols of all that's right and perfect-"

"Then they'll have more sponsors than Finnick Odair," Peeta says. He's fiddling with his pocket computer, queuing up more baby pictures.

"You don't want your child to turn out like Finnick," Haymitch tells him.

"Finnick's alive, isn't he?"

 

 

I was pregnant when Peeta was called to the Capitol for maintenance. He'd long since outgrown his leg, and it showed every time he walked. The old limb was past its prime anyway.

At first, Peeta tried to arrange a baby sitter. Maybe even a series of them, depending on how long he was gone.

I faced the unpleasant prospect of explaining to my mom that I couldn't watch my own children. That Peeta didn't even consider it. I thought of explaining it to Prim. Of seeing it on every face in District Twelve. So I convinced Peeta that I could handle it. They're just kids.

I went through the motions. Meals aren't hard. Feed them three times a day, like spoiled merchant children. We ate dinner together anyway. It was the in-between times that were hard. Entertaining them, keeping up with them, trying and failing to stick to whatever strange schedule Peeta had them on. I wonder if the whole district can see it anyway: that I don't know my children, that I've never spent much time with them before.

Tallow spent the first few days crying for his daddy. He turned to Nurse for reassurance. He turned to _Haymitch_.

I look at him and I wonder how this soft weak little creature can survive the Games.

"No chance" I think. Maybe I've gotten attached despite myself.

I watched him sleep one day. Crying made his face red. He looked like any merchant child, like Peeta, like Prim. He has Seam eyes. My eyes. Bluegrass has a Seam complexion and bright blue eyes, but Tallow looks like a smaller version of all the people I love.

It isn't fair, that this doomed child should look like the people precious to me. I wonder if he'll cry this way during the Games, when he's injured and starving and Peeta can't coddle him anymore. I wonder if he'll make that same wounded expression when Peeta can't save him. I wonder if I'll turn away from the screens just to see that same look on Peeta's face.

Maybe I've gotten attached despite myself.

I lost the baby.

 

 

It feels like eternity before we're returned to our Capitol apartment. I stand back while Peeta dives in. He hefts Bluegrass onto one hip and squeezes Tallow against the other, handing out kisses. He talks to Nanny while Nurse goes to fetch Calliope.

Portia and Cinna are here, but we're in no hurry. We'll do the last interview at home.

"You don't have to get dressed up again," Portia is saying to Blue. "All you have to do is put on your jammies."

Cinna isn't saying anything. He drifts over to stand by me.

Tallow's been playing with a toy sword. He shows it off for Effie, who plays along when he pretends to stab her. He's six. I wonder what they'll see in him, when they watch him play with these fancy toys. A killer in training?

What will Snow see?

"How are you holding up?" Cinna asks me.

Blue gives me a shy wave when Peeta prompts her, but she doesn't offer anything else. She whines to Portia that there have been too many pokey-things in her hair.

This should make me happy. This is what I wanted. No attachment, so it won't hurt. No attachment, so Snow can't use them against me.

"I'm alright," I say. I'm lying.

 

 

Being in mourning after our "tragic loss" gave us a little privacy. A little space. A little relief. Peeta and I had more time to lie side by side in bed, staring at the ceiling.

"I don't know why you're so upset," I said. "You have everything you ever wanted."

"You think this is what I wanted?"

We were happier that first year. Birth control and condoms, afraid for each other, afraid for our families, but making do. What were we doing now? We made time for each other, but the children still lingered between us - even now, when they were in their own rooms.

"I'm trying to make the best of it," Peeta said. "I don't want to let all of...this, change me. It feels like giving in."

"We already gave in. We already lost."

"Not yet. I'm still...not yet."

I put my head on his shoulder. I let the distance close.

We lost a long time ago.

"I love you, Katniss," he said, like it was something hard won. Another thing he won't let the Capitol take.

That was the night we made Calliope.

 

Peeta, and I, and our three adorable children. Together we represent Panem's model family. We are beautiful, and charitable, and above all, we are patriotic. We are sickening caricatures of ourselves.

Peeta and I and our three unwanted children. Broken puppets, soon to reach the end of our usefulness.

Which one of them was the president going to kill? The little boy who reminded me of Peeta, the soft one who cried when he skinned his knees? The little girl with the dark hair and the bright blue eyes, who shyly brought me books in the enduring hope that I'd give in and read to her? Or the little doll, Calli, the mistake I'd made all on my own?

Who was going to be the sacrifice?

Peeta sits next to me, holding Calli.

I pull away.


End file.
